


Little Happy Ending (This Is A Grand Finale)

by sandpapersnowman



Series: Tumblr Prompts: Alien Series (Prometheus, Covenant) [1]
Category: Alien: Covenant
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Implied Relationships, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2018-11-03 05:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10960662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandpapersnowman/pseuds/sandpapersnowman
Summary: She asks him if he'll help her build the cabin.He's honored and humbled to say he will.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ashleyketchumall asked for "a little fix it au where Daniels, Tennessee and Walter make it to the new planet and try to build a cabin and realize they have no goddamn clue what they're doing but it's ok cuz they're gonna stick together after all the shit they went through"
> 
> first chapter on tumblr [here](http://sandpapersnowman.tumblr.com/post/160902621014/). title from studio killers' [Grande Finale](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/studiokillers/grandefinale.html)

Seven years pass.

Walter’s been over-checking everything, constantly on the monitors and looking for anomalies. When Daniels laughs (with relief in it, though, and a certain fondness), he just tells her he’s been thorough.

They don’t wake the colonists until they’ve landed and done full scans for a certain strain of life, just in case.

Origae 6. Population: Walter, Tennessee, Daniels, 1,953 colonists, and 1,124 future, second-generation colonists.

The official story given for the tragically short-handed crew is a cryo malfunction. These people don’t need to know where they went, or what they saw.

Tennessee learns quick; Daniels is able to teach him how to operate most of the terraforming and construction equipment within a week, and the designated carpenters among the colonists learn from him.

Walter, as promised, follows Daniels further out from their landing site. It’s half a day’s walk away, but it’s beautiful; a lucky clearing, halfway up a mountain, looking out over the eerily-clear water source that leads, miles away, to humanity’s newest pit stop.

A strange, unrecognizable function in Walter urges him to put his arm around Daniels as they look out at the massive, stretching bend of river, so he does. She’s warm, and her arm goes around his waist much tighter than he holds her.

The beginnings of Buzyges rise quickly from the dirt; land is smoothed out quickly even as their temporary shelters are established, and the first building of many goes up within the week. Even with Walter’s help, and a small shelter established so the two of them can keep working on the cabin as soon as they wake up, they’ve only got the frame of it built by the time Tennessee sends word that they’ll be tilling the first fields soon enough.

It never occurred to her or to Jake that neither of them knows the first thing about building a home from the ground up, and she gives the wood a sad smile thinking that even if things had gone as planned, Walter would be helping them build it anyway.

She still keeps that first nail around her neck; it means even more now that it represents not just Jake and the idyllic life taken from them, but also Walter fighting for her, _saving_ her, and having the thought to bring it back to her because he understood the sentiment of it.

They’ve been sleeping in the same single-room shelter since they arrived, but after a couple weeks, Daniels has gotten into the habit of sleeping in the same bed as him, too. Not in any obscene capacity, just for the platonic intimacy of feeling another person near her as she sleeps.

After a couple more weeks, she stops thinking of it as platonic. If Walter notices how hesitantly she drapes her arm over his waist, or how calm her breathing becomes against his neck, he doesn’t say anything.

The cabin won’t be done for another month, at the fastest, but...

She gets the feeling they’ll be turning Walter’s room into an office, instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "wait were those exact numbers on the colonists"
> 
> shoves my notebook i brought into the movie under my bed, with 12 pages of notes on plot, numbers, and subtleties. idk what you're talking about


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [neomrphs](http://neomrphs.tumblr.com/) on tumblr asked for more daniels/walter and even though this isnt Quite what they asked for it is still more implicitly daniels/walter and includes.......... Smooches
> 
> on tumblr [here](http://sandpapersnowman.tumblr.com/post/160985879454/), too

Progress on the cabin increases exponentially as Walter teaches her. Balance and support and structure come easily to him, and he finds himself going on hours-long explanations of the simplest things, like how to reinforce a roof corner, options for shingling the roof to prevent weather damage -- he even starts thinking aloud about having a garden, and they end up logging what they’ll request once Buzyges is more stable and they’ve started processing their second generation of seeds.

As one of the two remaining crew members, and widow of the captain, Daniels tries to check in with the colony more often than she had been. When they landed, she needed… Calm. Time away from the mission to grieve, and consider her new future here, without Jake.

Walter helps. In every possible way, Walter helps; he lets her cry, lets her scream, lets her tear at the dirt of their future garden in a fit of frustration, like she’ll simply dig Jake back up smiling and laughing and he’ll join them for dinner in their shelter. She couldn’t building this cabin on her own -- wouldn’t have the strength to, physically or mentally. She doesn’t even know if she’d be able to pull herself out of bed without something to strive for like this.

...Some _one_ to strive for.

Walter wakes her up gently in the mornings, brushing her hair out of her face and whispering that he’ll open their log for the day. She wakes up to the feeling of him pulling himself from her arms, hearing the smile in his voice, losing the warmth from their bed.

It is _their_ bed, too; there’s no use in pretending she can sleep alone at night, at least early on, and then it just became habit. Even if she trusted herself to dream peacefully, she wouldn’t want to without feeling Walter against her chest.

Traveling between the cabin and the colony gets easier once things have settled. They have more power loader exosuits than people trained for them, so until they have enough unoccupied time to teach the colonists she and Tennessee have decided would pick up the controls easiest, it doesn’t hinder the colony’s progress for her to borrow one. Plus, it means she can bring more lumber back to the cabin at once, which means more progress and less time away.

She wouldn’t deny it’s nice getting back to Walter and the cabin faster, either. Her time becomes split pretty evenly between the colony and their cabin, and she finds herself missing him despite maintaining communication while she’s away.

Things change the day after they finish the exterior walls of the cabin.

The blueprint they drew up when she was freshly out of cryo hasn’t changed; _master bedroom, living room, kitchen & dining room area_, and _Walter’s room_. Details have been scribbled in around the edges, notes about how they want the windows and which wood to use for the door, and notes on the merits of stone flooring versus wood flooring, but the floor plan hasn’t changed.

Walter acts odd the morning they’re supposed to begin the interior walls. Daniels tells herself she’s just imagining it, but then…

He hesitates. He doesn’t hammer in the nail she handed him, but instead holds it in place, stares at it, and finally, seconds later, brings the hammer down.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

She knows him. Deviancy from his routine doesn’t happen, and he’s expressed just as much excitement about the cabin as she has (albeit in his own, dry ways).

“I’m fine,” he says, and while he’s a good liar, she can see through him as easily as she can see through the water behind them.

“Walter,” she says, soft, and puts her hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”

He hesitates again.

“I think I’ll miss your company at night,” he admits. Something in his voice tells her he’s only mentioning it because she asked, and he would have kept it bottled up otherwise. “Once the cabin is built.”

She can’t help it. She laughs.

“You’re not going to be…” She’s not sure how to word it. “I thought you’d still be sleeping with me.” Her face burns, and she hopes he doesn’t know or doesn’t catch the slight innuendo in it. “If you want to go to Buzyges, you can, obviously, but I figured sleeping arrangements could stay the same.”

He tries to hide it, but the relief that sweeps through him is written plain as day on his face.

“Oh,” he feigns casual, “alright.”

She smiles at him and squeezes her fingers where they’re still over his arm. He smiles back.

“We should probably adjust the floor plan, huh?”

Daniels pulls up the blueprints again on her datapad.

She erases the label for ‘Walter’s room’, but keeps the lines there.

“Would you still like a space to work in?”

Her room already has a corner sectioned off for paperwork and writing, but she knows Walter is supposed to be recording as much as possible.

“I’d like that, yes.”

She re-labels the rectangle.

 _Walter’s office_.

His smile gets wider by a fraction, but she sees it. She saves the changes and puts her datapad back down on the cluttered table their tools rest on, but before she can grab another hammer and get back to building, Walter stops her.

“Daniels?”

“Yes, Walter?”

“You are my dearest friend. I’d be saddened without you.”

It’s possibly the most sentiment he’s ever shown. Certainly the most straightforward. Walter is blunt, but he isn’t open with the things he _does_ feel, when he feels anything akin to human emotion at all.

She swallows. She’s had this feeling for a while, something nagging at her, but it only clicks then.

“Walter?”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to kiss me?”

He registers what seems like pretty genuine shock, but he doesn’t look put off.

“Would _you_ like me to?”

She knows it’s his programming, and he’d never come forward with something so blunt on his own. He’s asking her in that _tone_ , that hopeful, sweet voice he uses when they talk about _their_ garden and _their_ cabin, like he knows she could take it all away and make him leave, and he’s choosing his words to avoid that. As though she would _ever_ tell him to leave.

It makes her heart ache.

“I would like you to,” she confirms.

The words barely make it out before his mouth is on hers. She doesn’t know how much emotion he’s programmed to have, or if he’s broken through his own internal parameters for this, but he feels so desperate against her. Like she’s going to change her mind. Like she wouldn’t want him.

He only goes as far as she goes -- only opens his mouth when she does, only rests his hands on her waist when she puts her arms around his shoulders. In a way, it’s exhilarating that he only matches her, but that makes her heart ache worse, knowing that he might not be cognitively _able_ to, even if he wants to.

They can talk about that later, though.

She finally pulls away, just to breathe, and he starts stepping back like she’s pushed him.

“No,” she sighs. “It’s fine. You’re fine,” she whispers. She keeps her arms locked around him and pecks him on the lips again, letting her forehead rest against his.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Walter, I’m sure.”

She takes a moment like that, eyes only half open and enjoying feeling him so close, and his hands slowly slide around her as well.

“Is that --”

“-- Yes,” she answers, before he can even ask. 

They’re just standing there, holding each other, in a half-built house. A half-built house she was supposed to build with Jake, and she still misses him every day, but...

She kisses Walter again.

“It’s perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the name of the colony, Buzyges, is greek and pronounced something like 'BOO-zih-hyes'. if theres another chapter i'll have tennessee make a joke about how things are "busy in buzy" and it'll get shortened to that probs


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love? my children??

They’re so close to finishing the cabin that Daniels tries to leave as infrequently as possible. She visits Buzyges two days out of the week to stock up on supplies, check in, and chat with Tennessee, and her increased absence hasn’t gone unnoticed. Maybe it’s selfish of her, but… She needs it. She needs something to devote herself to.

“We miss you, y’know.”

She scoffs. Besides Tennessee, she’d only spoken to maybe fifty of the colonists, and those had been brief interviews, anyway, just before they’d gone into cryo. She appreciates it, though.

“ _You_ miss me,” she corrects. “And once we get transpo up and the cabin’s stable, I’ll be spending more time here, you know that.”

He throws a hand up.

“I know, but transpo’s still months away, and every time you talk about the cabin it’s always ‘almost done’ anyway.”

“Because it _is_. It’s always closer to done than the last time.”

He laughs.

“How are things?” she asks him.

“Busy as usual,” he answers. “Busy in _Buzy_.”

“No,” she snorts. It’s not going to catch on, and she’s going to personally make sure it doesn’t. “The wheat looks great already,” she says. 

They only have a small field cordoned off for it, because they can only process so much by hand before they get more efficient, but it’s already taller than the other fruits and vegetables.

She bites into one of the apples that’s grown from the single tree they brought. She can’t believe she almost argued against it for storage space, because _Christ_ if it’s not the best thing she’s had since they landed. She’ll have to remember to grab a few for her and Walter before she leaves.

She uses her pinky to open the files for Buzyges on her datapad, ready to record their weekly rundown.

“Update me on terraforming progress first?”

* * *

She comes back the next day with apples, more nails, and a smile.

“Evening, Daniels.”

She smirks, because Walter _still_ calls her ‘Daniels’, but she doesn’t wholly mind.

“Evenin’, Walter.”

She kisses him on the corner of his mouth before she heads into their shelter to change out of her sweaty travel clothes.

The kissing has become more common. She felt strange about it at first, about both wanting to kiss him and about actually doing it, but the smile he gives her after every one is so shy and boyish that she can’t imagine he minds.

She rinses off in the shower just to get the sweat off her skin and out of her hair. She’d like to go in the lake for it, honestly, but something makes her want to wait until the cabin is built. She doesn’t know what exactly, but it’d just feel wrong to swim in such beautiful, pristine water while the cabin stands halfway finished on the shore.

She doesn’t bother with a towel for her hair besides a quick ruffle with the one she’ll use to wrap around herself, because even though her hair is past her chin now, it still dries so quickly she considers an extra towel to be a waste.

She throws her leg over the bench of their ‘kitchen table’, which has really just become where they put her datapad and books and papers until the cabin is built, with a small space on the end cleared for actually eating. 

She puts her radio comm down on the clear spot, and the communication request from Tennessee comes through just as she sits. She was supposed to radio as soon as she got back, she knows, but a lukewarm shower in soft water was _calling_ to her.

“Hey,” she answers.

“Howdy. You get back okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. Jumped in the shower as soon as I got here.”

“Gotcha,” he says.

(She grins to herself, because she recognizes the too-casual, I-totally-wasn’t-worrying tone.)

“Hey,” Tennessee asks, “You alone?”

She glances at the hard plastic door of their temporary shelter. She can hear Walter working outside, hammering the outline of a window in place so they can put up the ‘glass’ itself soon. She smiles to herself.

“Yeah,” she confirms. “What’s up?”

“What’s going on with you and the robot?”

She blushes.

“ _Nothing_? What are you talking about?”

Tennessee laughs on the other end.

“Come on, Danny. You couldn’t get out of Buzy fast enough yesterday.”

She’s distracted enough by the context of their conversation not to correct him.

“Because we’re working on the cabin, not because I’m -- because anything is --”

“Danny, look, I get it. Jake’s gone, it’s lonely, and Walter’s nice.” He sighs. “You know I want you to be happy, babe.”

Daniels groans to herself. He hasn’t called her ‘babe’ in years; he only uses it when he’s being sincere and needs to get through to her, and the last time he was that worried was when she met Jake right after college. _Ha._

“It’s not like that,” she says softly. She doesn’t know what it _is_ like, but it’s not whatever Tennessee is thinking. “He’s helping me build the cabin, and, yeah, he’s helping keep me grounded after everything --”

“-- But it’s not like _that_ ,” Tennessee finishes.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t sound teasing or mean about it. If anything, maybe he understands.

“Yeah.”

He sighs on the other end again. 

“You could have just brought a dildo.”

“Don’t be gross,” she says, and hangs up.

(He knows as well as she does that the Walter model doesn’t even have those functions, and he’s just being an asshole to cover for being genuine for five whole seconds. Jerk.)

She pushes her wet hair out of her face from hunching over the comm. She really should get dressed, but the towels they sent on the mission are more comfortable than half the clothes they took, and with the temperature slowly rising each day as they get into this planet’s approximate ‘summer’, it’s nice to feel herself cooled down for once.

Walter knocks on the shelter door before he comes in, an old habit that won’t die even with them living together. She supposes she appreciates it over the alternative of him barging into any room he pleases, but she still always feels that tug on her heart for his enduring submissive behavior.

“Daniels?”

She smiles.

“You can call me ‘Danny’, Walter.”

She hasn’t insisted on it yet, because she wants him to do it on his own. He’s not restricted to pure obedience anymore, they’ve both discussed it, but she knows that after however long he’s been activated hearing horror stories about other synthetics acting human and being destroyed for it, he’s still nervous. She doesn’t push it; he’ll take it upon himself when he’s ready.

“I…” He hesitates, like he doesn’t want to overstep his boundaries, but like _not_ saying whatever he’s come in here to will also overstep boundaries. He looks extremely uncomfortable, as a whole. “I overheard you on the radio with Tennessee.”

Her face goes red realizing he must have heard Tennessee asking about them, and then she goes red from the edge of her towel and up realizing he must have also heard Tennessee’s dildo comment. She’s going to _murder_ him.

“Sorry,” she mutters. “He’s an asshole.”

Walter sits down on opposite bench of the table.

“Would you like to talk about it?” he asks.

She considers it, but what would she even say? They’re not… They don’t have a label for what they’re doing, which isn’t much anyway -- she kisses him on the cheek a lot, and he smiles at her, and they’re still sleeping together, obviously, and spooning, but that’s _platonic_ spooning. She doesn’t even know if they _are_ doing anything, either, because Walter is infuriatingly obedient, and even though she knows he’s capable of an amount of independent thought, he’ll jump through any hoop to avoid showing it, so she still feels like she’s using him even though she knows she isn’t.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t think there’s anything to talk about, anyway.”

Walter frowns.

“We could address Tennessee speaking insubordinately,” he suggests. “Or his implication that something uncouth is going on, or that you could be hurt by it.”

Daniels laughs.

“I’ve known him since college, it’s not insubordination.” It is, technically, but she’s not exactly going to file a complaint to Weyland-Yutani because her friend is still talking to her as a peer. Certainly not when the ‘insubordination’ is about whether or not she’s banging her robot poolboy.

“What about you and I?” Walter asks.

The blush creeps back up again.

“What about us?”

She feels bad saying it like _that_ , but. Between Tennessee making her nervous about addressing her feelings toward him and not wanting to take advantage of their admittedly uneven dynamic to make him do anything he feels like he has to do if she wants it. Even that _thought_ is confusing to think about.

“There _is_ something going on, isn’t there?” he asks softly. “Synthetic crew isn’t usually afforded the same comforts of the human crew, and certainly not so intimately with another crewmate.”

“No,” she admits, “It’s not strictly necessary, so it doesn’t tend to happen.”

“But it did.”

He means _’I am afforded the same comforts as a human’_ , but all she can think is _yes, God,_ you _happened, so quickly_.

“These aren’t the usual circumstances.”

She’s making excuses, and she knows it, and the barely-there scrunch of frustration in Walter’s face says he knows it too.

“Could I speak freely, ma’am?”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling.

“Of course, Walter. You don’t even have to ask.”

“I’d like it if there were,” he confesses. “If there were something going on. I enjoy all of our time together, and wish you were here when you’re away. I’m glad we’re building the cabin, and I’m glad we’ll both be living in it, because I don’t like to think of living separately after the time we’ve spent here.”

He reaches for her hand with body language much calmer and more casual than his words are. She wonders if he can feel the adrenaline under her skin, or smell it, or if the fear and anxiety and hope in her eyes is enough to tell him what she’s thinking.

“If you don’t feel the same or would rather I not, all you have to do is tell me and I’ll return to my usual functions as a companion and assistant.”

His fingers thread into hers, and she finds his thumb very gently stroking over her own. A comforting measure he picked up while they were onboard the Covenant, but she’s sure he’s aware of what it could mean in this context.

She swallows. She knows she’d have to explain this to Tennessee, and possibly the other colonists, and possibly _Weyland_ , but she forces herself not to think about that. That can wait.

Walter is what matters right now.

“No, Walter,” she sighs. “I… I feel the same.”

She’s never seen his face light up the way it does, but there’s that shy smile from kissing and settling into bed and eating breakfast together -- multiplied by thousands, now, and she has to look away because her smile is getting too big for her face too.

“You’re sure?” he asks. There’s a smugness on his face she wants to kiss away, because he knows the answer.

“ _Yes_ , Walter, I’m sure.”

“Would you like to put a term to the new nature of our relationship?” he asks, and damn if he hasn’t mastered that calm tone even while she can feel his fingers practically buzzing with happiness against her knuckles. “I don’t mind one way or the other, of course.”

She thinks for a moment. Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Partner sounds too distant to her, accurate as it’d be. Significant Other?

_Synthnificant Other,_ her awful brain considers, and she smirks to herself. She’ll broach that one day if she’s ever sure he isn’t self-conscious about it, but not today.

“I’m not sure of a term that’d apply properly,” she admits. “Everything I can think of doesn’t feel accurate enough.”

He thinks too, and must come to the same conclusion as her; there’s really no term for it. Genuinely devoted synthetic/human relationships are basically unheard of back on Earth, with the concept typically brushed off in the same way Tennessee had brushed it off.

“I understand,” he says. “We’ll reconsider it later.”

She squeezes his fingers between hers, the same way she has every other time they’ve held hands like this. She’s not sure she’s smiled at anyone this fondly and so openly since they left Earth.

“Once the cabin is done,” she starts, “we can brainstorm more.”

Walter nods.

_Swaltheart_ , her brain says. _No,_ she tells it, but mentally puts it with ‘synthnificant other’ to bring up later. Much, much later.

They’ll think of something.


	4. Chapter 4

Once the cabin is established enough that neither of them worry about it falling over in the right storm or otherwise destabilizing, things slow down. They can take their time, mark every detail on her datapad and plan for the most trivial things, while they continue living pretty comfortably in the temp shelter.

The time comes for her weekly trip to Buzy (damn Tennessee, it caught on anyway). Walter chats with her and helps her pack her backpack as always, but this time, he hesitates to hand her back her datapad.

“Is something wrong?” she asks.

She knows he’s been extra careful since her last trip. Coming back from Buzy last time meant Tennessee asking questions, and pointing fingers, and holding hands and admitting to each other something was there.

(The last part was pleasant, if nothing else. It means more kissing, and more holding hands. She kisses him goodnight and good morning now, too. It’s nice.)

“Would you mind if I joined you?” he rushes out. “I can help carry supplies, and I’m interested in seeing how the colony is coming along.”

“Of course.” She takes her datapad from him. “Do you need to pack anything? Tennessee’s got most of the bases covered, but if there’s anything non-essential you want to bring, grab it.”

He seems to be actively shoving down pleasant surprise at her answer, but she doesn’t call him out on it. It’s cute when he thinks he’s getting away with things.

“I don’t think so,” he says.

“You know how long the trip is,” she reminds him. “Are you good to make it there and back?”

For the most part, he can consume food the same as them if he needs to recharge with organic fuel, and his internal ‘battery’ can last for weeks if necessary, and he’s not heavy enough Daniels _couldn’t_ carry him if she needed to, but --

“I am,” he confirms. Well, alright.

She mentally doublechecks that she’s got all the water and supplement food bars she’ll need to make it there, first aid kit, jacket and hat in case it rains or the temperature drops…

Yeah, she’s good to go.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

* * *

The colony is thriving. The slack from being over 50 people short is picked up easily by those truly enjoying simple lives of farming and construction and early flourish -- things are going better than her or any simulation had ever dreamed. They’ve already set up their meager meteorology station, so they can track weather a few days out, and that makes building _much_ quicker just because they’re not being rained out without alternate plans for the day.

Many of the colonists are pleased to see Walter, and he delights in shaking every hand with dirt under its nails or callouses from operating machinery.

Daniels slips up and calls the colony ‘Buzy’ very quickly, and Tennessee teases her through her rounds, through dinner, and throws in one last comment before her and Walter head back the next morning.

* * *

“The progress on the housing sections were expected but still impressive,” he says. “The fields seem so much bigger than in the mission plan.”

She smiles. Her hand slips into his, because they’re far enough away from the colony that it’s unlikely anyone will see them. Even if someone did, the terrain still hasn’t been adjusted for transpo -- Walter could have been helping her step over a particularly obnoxious rock or root in their path.

His fingers lace into hers easily.

It’s a good signal to have, all things considered -- _drop your guard, it’s okay, it’s just me._

“It’s beautiful,” he sighs, letting himself sound dreamy and wistful. “I’ve never seen so many plants in dirt.”

She laughs.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” she agrees, and he nods.

“We could convert the shelter into a greenhouse,” he thinks out loud. “If you wanted to,” he adds.

She smirks, because she’d like that, sure, but Walter’s the one who treated the hydroponics bay like his baby. If he wanted to line the lake and the cabin and the forestline with plants, she’d go get the seeds for it herself.

“You’ll have to learn to grow plants in dirt,” she points out.

“Archaic,” he scoffs, still smiling. “Nevermind.”

“You could grow more cannabis,” she jokes. “They won’t get around to replanting them from the hydro bay for a while.”

He laughs in what she’s almost certain is an imitation of her own snort/huff/’hmph’ thing. He doesn’t do it much, but it always gives her a weird sense of pride.

“Daniels?” he asks suddenly.

He’s the only one who calls her that anymore. Even the other colonists have gotten used to addressing the woman that’s essentially their leader as informally as ‘Danny’.

“Yeah?”

“Did you notice anything strange about the head of Accommodations?”

She snorts. Yeah, she had. The guy was practically tripping over her -- one of the colonists who’d lost their partner, apparently, who unfortunately thought she was fair game since she’d lost Jake, as well.

“Y’know, you would’ve thought someone would take a hint after the fourth _’no, I can’t, I’m eating with Tennessee and Walter tonight’_ ,” she jokes.

Walter smiles, but doesn’t quite laugh.

“So you don’t return his interest in you, then?”

She snorts harder.

“Christ, no. Besides, I…”

She shrugs. Squeezes his hand in hers to buy the time to word it.

“You know I have you.”

He smiles, _that_ smile she loves, and she leans her next step so she bumps his shoulder with hers.

A few quiet, smiling moments pass, and then,

“Are you uninterested in him particularly, or uninterested in general?”

She frowns. She didn’t think this guy’s awful flirting had seriously bothered him, but his hand in hers is tense. Like he’s afraid to ask, but still can’t help himself.

“Both,” she answers, truthfully. “Walter, hey.”

She stops walking and tugs on his hand, making him stop too.

“I don’t want to spend my time with anyone else,” she says softly. She tries to remember the things he’d said, what he considered emotionally intimate -- time, shared space, mutual affection. “I can’t wait to finish the cabin,” she says, and immediately emphasizes, “ _our_ cabin.”

His hair’s fallen just out of place from being stopped so quickly, so she brushes it back with the hand that isn’t in his.

“I don’t want separate beds, and I don’t want anyone besides you in my bed, either.”

It’s a shot in the dark that he won’t take it as innuendo, but she doesn’t care. It’s not that she hasn’t thought about him like that -- because it _has_ been months since she’s had _that_ sort of intimacy -- but it’s not what’s on her mind. 

Her hand settles at his jaw, with her thumb stretched up so she can stroke over his cheekbone.

She wants to tell him something she’s been in denial of since they went back into cryo, but then, he kisses her.

The primal thrill of someone else initiating, someone else _leading_ , is something she hasn’t felt in a long time. She hadn’t even realized she’d missed it until now, something singing up her spine 

He’s not doing anything particularly risky, just a chaste kiss with one hand in hers and the other holding the side of her face to mirror her own, but it’s _him_. It’s Walter kissing her, and Walter _deciding_ to kiss her and doing it _himself_.

He can’t keep kissing her when she’s smiling so hard, and he pulls away.

“I’m --”

“-- No,” she interrupts, before he can apologize. “It’s good, I _want_ you to do that, Walter.”

He kisses her again, harder, and the hand in hers loops around her waist instead to hold her closer. 

Maybe this is what’s been bothering him -- feeling like she’s getting impatient because he’s still not sure how to act for himself yet, and being unable to act on his own. That’d make sense; the head of Accommodations was obnoxious, but at least he _tried_. It’d explain why he was so stuck on the guy flirting with her, too. Poor thing.

Despite the other times they’ve kissed, it’s never gone further than chaste presses of lips and touching smiles. One or the other will pull away, because they have work to do or they’re going to bed or for whatever other reason, and that’ll be it.

Now, Walter is pushing his fingertips into her hair to keep her there, and his mouth moves against hers like a real kiss, something _intimate_. She slides her other hand up his chest and over his shoulder to loop around his neck and hold him just as close, and she can barely breathe between the kissing and the pressure on her chest, but it’s _worth it_.

It takes her actually getting kind of light-headed and Walter noticing her breath isn’t coming frequently enough for them to stop, and even then, she tries to follow his mouth as he pulls back.

He laughs fondly, and sort of embarrassed for himself for letting her almost nearly pass out, but he kisses her forehead while she catches her breath against his jaw.

“Sorry,” he says. It sounds lighter than his other apologies -- like he knows he doesn’t need to apologize at all, so it instead comes off kind of smug. It’s cute.

Daniels swallows down words she’s not ready to say again yet.

“C’mon,” she wheezes. “We have to get back before the rain starts.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some warning for semi-graphic description of an injury? walter hurt his arm

The Walter model isn’t completely waterproof. They’d been warned of that before Walter joined them, that he could be submerged briefly or washed off carefully, but not to depend on him being amphibious.

They hadn’t been warned about this.

“Can I come in?”

Well. The shower in the shelter is large enough for two people, considering the not-single demographic of the other colonists. He _could_ come in.

She tries to ask if he’s okay, because she’s sure he wouldn’t ask unless it was urgent, but instead she turns mostly away from the bathroom door and calls, “Yeah, come in.”

He keeps his eyes off of her when he comes in, instead rushing to the sink with his arm held in front of him.

Oh. _Oh,_ he hadn’t been asking about the shower at all, just -- Christ. Tennessee is getting to her.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. The shower door is clear but frosted -- if he looked over, he could see her outline, but nothing too explicit. She’s been in enough community showers anyway that her anxiety follows water down the drain knowing he isn’t coming in at all.

“Slipped,” he says. “In the mud. Fell on a nail.”

They’d fixed his arm before they went back into cryo; it's not as perfect as his previous one, but functional, and he wears enough long sleeves that the difference in tone below his elbow is rarely seen anyway. But, since it’s just an emergency spare they never even thought they'd use, it doesn’t have the same healing capability as the rest of him.

“Shit,” she says. “How bad is it?”

“Could be worse." He’s left the sink and is rummaging through the compartments of the bathroom storage, gathering medical supplies in his other hand. “I was going to wait until you were out, but became concerned about losing fluid. Sorry.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry.” He’s occupied enough with his arm that he doesn’t look up when she leaves the shower, grabbing a towel, drying her hands off, and wrapping it around herself before she joins him at the counter beside the sink. “How can I help?” she asks.

“It’s not that bad,” he insists, “I’ve got it.”

She starts opening pack of gauze just in case he can’t get the ‘bleeding’ to stop, because it’s not _great_ , either. She can see where his skin was pulled apart from the nail lodging in his forearm, and where it tore more skin and muscle apart from the impact.

He’s gotten any debris there might have been out of his arm, but it’s still spilling white fluid onto the counter and into the sink.

“Staples or tape stitches?” she asks.

“Tape,” he says quickly.

She opens a pack of those too. He’ll need four minimum, and that’ll just be to hold his skin closed long enough to secure it. He’ll probably need more like ten, and even _that_ would be leaving some gaps in his skin.

“Can you hold it closed?” she asks.

He does so, his uninjured arm crossing over himself to squeeze his other arm, and then the edges of skin are close enough she can start laying stitches over it.

“Are you injured in any other way?” she asks, still pressing stitches over his skin. She’s never been one to get queasy with blood, and certainly not synthetic blood, but she still doesn’t want him to lose any more than he’s already lost.

“No.”

He’s shaking; she can see his fingers trembling where he’s keeping his skin closed, and the strands of hair that have fallen out of place seem to vibrate from the minute tremors that keep pushing through him.

“Are you okay?”

Walter nods, but he’s still shaking. 

She puts the last stitch over the tear and he slowly lets go of his arm, like he’s worried it will just split open again if he isn’t holding it. He practically collapses onto the floor, sitting and leaning back against the sink unit.

“You’re acting strange,” she says. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

He nods again, and she doesn’t really believe him, but he’s smiling. He looks relieved, if nothing else, so she brushes his hair back with her fingers.

“How did this even happen?” she asks.

“I slipped,” he repeats.

“ _How_ , though?”

She knows him better than that; even if he somehow overlooked unstable ground, he still should have been able to catch himself.

“I was distracted,” he finally confesses. Simulated red blush makes his face look so much softer. “I was thinking about what I could cook for you from our garden, and I didn’t realize the ground wasn’t solid enough. I slipped.”

She turns red too, but she’s smiling. _Our_ garden, he’d said, not _the_. 

“Are you serious?” she asks.

He looks up at her like he expects to be scolded or told off for daydreaming, but just turns redder when he sees that she’s just fondly amused.

“Yes. Sorry.”

She leans forward and kisses his forehead.

“Don’t apologize,” she mumbles.

She gently runs her hand up his hurt arm, and he winces.

She pulls away with a concerned frown.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” he lies. He’s a bad liar. “You just startled me.”

“Walter,” she whispers. “Does it hurt?” she asks again.

He hesitates. Won’t look her in the eye.

Walter units can feel anything they’re programmed to, but most are given dulled senses. She knows for a fact that him, _her_ Walter, had no pain registry in preparation for the possibly-harsh environment of Origae-6. It was demonstrated helpfully in the downright-hostile environment on the other planet, when he’d saved her, and hadn’t even blinked as one of those creatures tore part of his limb off.

This is something in him that’s changed. That’s not supposed to happen.

“I may have adjusted some things,” he says, purposely vague.

“What kinds of things?” she asks.

He swallows. It’s a nervous tic, one he shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have _any_ kind of tic.

“Internal balances,” he admits, with no small amount of hesitation. “For physical sensation,” he explains, looking at his arm, “and more human-like interaction."

She sighs.

Something tells her they need to talk about this.


	6. Chapter 6

_“I may have adjusted some things,” he’d said._

She sits across from him on the fake tile, legs crossed.

“Is that safe for you?” she asks.

“Safe enough,” he says, and it’s thankfully not his awful lying voice again. “I have a hidden control panel in your datapad I’ve been using to adjust my balances. I can show you where if you want to put me back to defaults, or need to in the future.”

“No,” she says automatically. “It’s not my place.”

“It’s not mine either,” he points out, just as automatically.

“I trust you,” she shoots back. The idea of _not_ trusting someone with their own self is ridiculous, but so is this whole situation. It’s worth saying.

He rearranges himself as well, mirroring her position with his hurt arm cradled on his lap.

“How long has this been going on? If you want to tell me.”

She’s concerned, but he still deserves as much privacy as any other adult.

“I made the first adjustments one year after you and Tennessee went back to sleep. Just some increased empathy.” She nods, so he continues. “When you kissed me, I started making more adjustments. I knew I was capable of more than I already felt, and I… I _wanted_ to feel more.”

She nods again. That… Well. It explains him being hurt about the man in Buzy trying to flirt with her.

“Walter?”

He just looks at her, his expression open in a way she’s never seen it. He’s prepared to be scolded, or congratulated, or yelled at -- it occurs to her he probably truly didn’t know if she’d be okay with it, or support it.

“Did you do this for me, or for yourself?”

She says it so carefully. There’s no wrong answer, of course, and it’s not like she’ll reprimand him either way; she just wants to know he’s not trying to make himself into something he doesn’t want to be for her sake, because some guilty part of her is whispering that maybe he just doesn’t want her to be sad about Jake.

He considers the question for a very long moment.

“Are you aware of my mission parameters?” he finally says instead.

“What, in general?”

He nods.

“You were sent with our ship to maintain systems while we were in hypersleep, and to assist however you could once we got to Origae-6,” she answers. 

He nods again.

“I don’t have any direction past that, since I should have been shut down once my purpose was fulfilled,” he says. “I’m… Winging it.”

He waits for her to say something, to understand. She doesn’t.

“I very literally don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t have an instinctive, programmed purpose anymore.” He looks frustrated with himself. “And I’ve only met one other synthetic who’s running past their intended expiration date,” he admits, bitterly.

He’s only met one other synthetic _ever_ , as far as she knows.

She goes cold.

“You mean David,” she realizes.

“I didn’t want to worry you, or scare you,” he says quietly. “Units made for a specific purpose are _meant_ to be deactivated once it’s fulfilled. It’s like a train running out of track.”

“I’m not scared,” she says the second he stops speaking. She couldn’t stand the thought of Walter feeling _feared_ , certainly not after everything that’s happened. “Do _you_ feel like you’re running out of track?”

He hesitates.

“No,” he says slowly. “I just don’t feel like I can see the track anymore,” he decides. “Like I could derail at any moment, just because I’m not positive I won’t.”

“Did adjusting your balances help with that feeling?”

She reaches for his uninjured hand. In the moment, it’s more than their signal, his free pass to speak and act as he’d like; it’s the best way she can comfort him without risking hurting his other arm again, and the only physical contact she can make with him in this position.

His fingers thread through hers desperately. He’s shaking again.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m still not used to anxiety, or fear, or anything else, even if I don’t feel it to the same extent you do. I didn’t want to be like _him_ ,” Walter finally admits. “I needed to feel human. I didn’t want to delude myself into thinking I was a king, or a _god_ , or above everyone else. I needed to know for sure that I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

Daniels feels her eyes getting hot like she’s tearing up. All of this pain and worry and fear, and she had no idea. How did she miss this?

“A _lot_ happened to David,” she says bluntly. Even though Peter Weyland himself had been dead for a decade _before_ they’d left for Origae-6, the kinds of rumors surrounding him and his personal David unit weren’t the kind that faded in death. Only God knows the truth about what happened on the Prometheus and to Elizabeth Shaw. Even if Walter _was_ the same model as him, it would still be different. “You could never be like him,” she promises. 

“You saw what he did to Shaw,” he continues, “and he still said he loved her.”

“You’re not him,” she says again.

“I don’t want to be capable of that,” he says again, and something is wrong with his voice. It sounds strained, and rough. “I want to be good, and -- and be with you.”

His breath hitches, and Christ, that’s a sob. He’s crying. She didn’t even know the Walter model was capable of that, but here he is, about to break down on their bathroom floor.

“Hey,” she says softly, and gets up on her knees so she can pull him to her.

He accepts the gesture like he’s ached for it, and maybe he has -- he’s probably been holding back on the affection and tenderness he’d actually _like_ to have, afraid of her realizing something was off. Poor thing.

She can’t stop petting through his hair while he shakes and cries against her. It’s so soft, just barely damp from the humidity. His hands claw at her shoulders, the pain in his arm forgotten in favor of _comfort_. 

“I love you,” is mumbled wetly into her chest. “I’m sorry.”

It feels like he’s stopped her heart.

_Don’t say that_ , she wants to tell him. She’s not ready for those words; they’re the ones she’s been shoving down when he kisses her goodnight, and starts her coffee in the morning, and lifts her up to get enough height to hammer something in on the ceiling of their cabin. _Don’t_ say _that_ , she wants to tell him, because he has nothing to be sorry for. She’s the one who’s in too deep.

She pulls his face up and kisses him.

His lips are wet from tears, and clammy, and he kisses her back so softly and sweetly that she wants to cry too.

She’s not ready for those words. She’s spent too long in denial, this can’t be the straw that breaks her back.

She stops kissing him. He doesn’t need to breathe, but she could swear his chest is shuddering with breath.

He looks so lost, and hopeful, and _human_. His eyes aren’t fully open, and they’re wet with tears.

“I love you too,” she whispers.

Fuck it. It’s true.

The tears start again, but this time, he’s smiling; tears of joy, relief, the alleviation of worries she can’t even imagine, and he kisses her again.

His tears are room temperature, the same almost-cool the rest of him runs at, so she’s sure he notices when two tears trail down her own cheeks at a much hotter temperature.

He does. He stops kissing her, looking worried.

“That’s -- is this okay?”

She laughs and wipes tears off her face.

“Yeah,” she assures him. “Good tears.”

He nods, looking relieved again.

“Good,” he sighs.

He’s looking at her so dreamily it almost makes her blush.

“What?”

“Can we sit somewhere else?” he asks. “The floor is uncomfortable.”

She can’t help laughing. 

It’ll be weird for a bit adjusting to him having more human needs, but she doesn’t think it’ll be too difficult. Besides, their cabin is going to be done sooner than later -- he’ll be able to experience human comfort with the ability to _appreciate_ human comfort.

She’s proud of him. 

Weirdly, she thinks Jake would be proud of him, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3's new thing is to turn double spaces into triple spaces and it is killing me slowly going through the whole thing in the ao3 chapter text to take out the extra spaces


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so! hello! i know it's been forever since i updated and this is a p short chapter! i havent had wifi since like june and that cut me off from working on this fic but since i'm visiting my friend with wifi for a bit, i was able to sync everything!! so we should be back to regular-ish updates! i think this will be about 10 chapters maybe? with the possibility of other stuff in a series with it once i'm done if i still have stuff for it?? idk idk that's a little ways out but! yeah!
> 
> next chapter is like ~70% done! i cant make any promises for how soon itll be posted but i Can promise it'll be longer than this and will have stuff i know some people have asked about specifically!!
> 
> anyway!! i am glad to be back and i hope u guys are glad too! heres a new chapter!!

The cabin is beautiful.

She’s been waiting to invite Tennessee up to see it for the last week, putting finishing touches on it, but she can’t think of anything else it needs.

They stand out on the porch, at first, but they’re not far enough to see it as a whole. They walk further back together, closer to the lake’s shore, Daniels turning around every few steps to see if the view is just right yet.

Half a minute later, she turns around to try it again, and her hands move to cover her mouth.

That’s it.

That’s the cabin.

Big enough not to be cramped but small enough not to be over-indulgent; pointed roof for rain and snow, with a window in the arch looking into the attic. Two big, wide windows on the front, looking out at the porch and the lake from either side of their beautiful front door, carved into a _mural_ of trees and trees and trees up the front. Then the porch, fenced in with a charmingly uneven railing that connects at its corners to the sloped roof covering it.

Wood steps lead down into the dirt and gravel, where Walter will soon have his garden all the way around the cabin, lining it, and instead of rich browns in front of the green of the treeline, there’ll be red and orange and _purple_ as Walter grows flowers and vegetables and, he’d admitted, probably more cannabis.

And, in front of that, where a mailbox might be if they were decades in the past, is the small square of gravel they’ll be using as a grave. Jake’s body is out there, somewhere, and they can never get that back, but they can give him a headstone.

The cabin is beautiful, and it’s _theirs_ , they built it from the ground up and it’s _finally done_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a fun fact: i zoned out and almost pasted an entirely different fic here
> 
> rating might go up next chapter But next chapter will probably be a little while. i'm getting better about writing daily again, which i havent been doing for a while, but even then i dont want to make promises because i Know myself lmao
> 
> that being said, enjoy! its the longest chapter so far!

She sends the message to Tennessee the next morning: _Cabin done. Dinner tomorrow?_

It takes an hour or so for him to get away from whatever he’s busy with (or to wake up, since she’s sure he’s offset his work schedule a bit so he can sleep in). Sure enough, though, she gets a response around midday.

_Sure! See you then._

She grins at her datapad.

“Walter!” she calls, knowing he’ll be able to hear her from the kitchen if he’s still out in their fledgling garden. “Tennessee’s gonna come by tomorrow night!”

“Alright!” he calls back.

Dinner won’t be anything fancier than rations and the wine her and Jake were saving for when they finished the cabin, since their garden is still just wet dirt and buried seeds, but it’ll still be nice to catch up with Tennessee in person rather than text.

Hell, maybe they’ll even work up to telling him about them.

Tennessee arrives just before sundown the next day, rolling out of the woods in one of the transportation carts that have been freed up from frantic initial construction and can be used to get around the colony and surrounding areas.

She hugs him hello -- in the final stretch of cottage construction, she hasn’t been down to Buzy in two weeks, and it’s been longer than that since they were actually able to say ‘hello’ past a quick wave while she’s there to replenish supplies.

“Danny! Jesus Christ, your hair is getting long,” he laughs. He swipes at some hanging over her cheek, the ends starting to really curl like it couldn’t when they left Earth.

She swats his hand away. “Shut up, it’s not _that_ long.” She tucks the bit he pawed at behind her ear. “I’ll have Walter cut it when things settle down a little more.”

He grins. “Yeah, where’s he at? You said he was still staying here, right?”

She nods, and hopes her smile doesn’t give away too much. She previously told him Walter was staying with her because she wouldn’t feel safe alone, and she considered him a close friend.

In her defense, that was true at the time. Technically, it still is.

“Yeah, he’s finishing dinner inside.” She puts a hand on his shoulder and turns him toward the house. “Oh, and you have to take your shoes off when you come in,” she informs him. “House rule.”

He laughs, but when they get to the door, he obediently makes a show of undoing his boots and shuffling them off, and kick-scoots them into the space beside her and Walter’s.

“Hey, Walter!” Tennessee greets. “How’s it hangin’, buddy?”

Walter smiles at him from the dining area, two places set and him finishing the third. 

His smile seems… Vacant. They agreed it might be for the best if he acted a little more robot-y while Tennessee was visiting, at least at first, but it’s still a little unnerving to see when she’s used to him being _himself_.

“I’m well,” Walter replies evenly. “How have you been?”

“Been good, buddy.” He happily claps Walter on the back hard enough to knock over a small building, and Walter doesn’t budge. He turns to Daniels again with his hand still planted on Walter’s back. “So! Grand tour?”

The ‘tour’ takes about a minute, and mostly consists of pointing; the dining room with just enough space for four people to sit, the kitchen with a bar counter separating it from the open living room, their shared office, bathroom -- which, Tennessee mentions, he needs to use before they have dinner.

After, Daniels sits Tennessee at their dining room table. It’s more modern, refashioned from one of the steel tables they’d had in their temp shelter, but rounded at the edges to look less clinical. Walter had even taken it upon himself to engrave the sides and edges with flowing, intricate patterns to up the fanciness, and surprised her with it when she returned from a Buzy trip.

(She hadn’t told Tennessee that part, or how she’d flung her arms around his neck and kissed him and he’d gone completely red from it.)

“So?” she asks. “What do you think?”

“It’s great,” he says, but it’s too flat.

She frowns.

“What’s wrong?”

Tennessee hesitates. She’s very rarely seen it on him; caution, consideration, tact -- they’re not quite his strong suit.

He flicks his eyes toward Walter and back to her quickly. He doesn’t want to say while Walter is in the room.

“Hey, Walter?” she says, smiling at him. “Could you go get more firewood?”

There’s the briefest look of confusion, recognition that something is off, but he erases it with a smile and a nod.

“Certainly, ma’am.” He stands smoothly and pushes his chair back in. “Won’t be long.”

They watch Walter leave, pulling on his boots from the pairs lined up by the door before he goes, though she imagines Tennessee probably isn’t also admiring how cute loose, comfortable house clothes look on him.

Tennessee still waits until they hear him step off the porch, and the faint crunch of feet on alien dirt fades.

“What’s up?” Daniels asks again.

“There’s only one bedroom,” Tennessee finally says. Pointedly. Carefully, lingering on every word like he’s not quite sure if he’s right or not, because surely there’s not _just_ one bedroom, right?

.... _Fuck._

“My bedroom,” she lies. _Their_ bedroom, it’s _their_ bedroom. _Shit_. How did she not think about this?

“I thought Walter was staying out here with you?”

She swallows. He knows her -- knows her well enough that he wouldn’t buy a lie about having him stay in the temp shelter because that’d be rude and she wouldn’t do that to him, or about _’oh, I just forgot to plan ahead for two people_ , because that’s what she _does_ , she _plans_.

She still hasn’t come up with an answer, and Tennessee covers his mouth as he realizes.

“Oh my _God_ , Danny.”

Her face flushes. It’s over. She’s given it away, without talking to Walter about it or fully preparing herself for it or even having control of how the topic is broached. _Shit_.

“It isn’t like that,” she says, and _oh_ , that’s just her go-to, isn’t it? She must look like such an asshole. “He’s my friend.”

“Yeah, some kind of _buddy_ , maybe.”

She hits his arm on the table with her datapad. Maybe a little too hard, but he can deal with a rectangular bruise for a few days.

“Keep your voice down,” she hisses.

“Danny, this is so fucking creepy,” he hisses back. “What are you _doing_?”

She hits him again, hard enough there’s an instant moment of regret in case she’s just broken her datapad. (She hasn’t. A very small victory.)

“I’m not _’doing’_ anything.”

“He doesn’t even _know_ any better.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“He’s just… He’s not a _human_ , Danny. He doesn’t _have feelings_.”

“He does,” she spits. “You didn’t meet David, you don’t know what they’re capable of.”

“ _Jesus_ , Danny, do you even hear yourself?” His voice is too loud. “What, so he can have feelings like David did? That doesn’t scare you?”

“Walter isn’t David. David was fucked in the head and they all ended up _recalled_ because Weyland was an idiot and an asshole.”

“So what makes Walter any different, huh?”

“I --”

She stops herself.

‘ _I love him_ ’ is what she almost said.

Tennessee hears it anyway.

“Fuck, Danny.”

“He’s a person,” she grits out. “Even though he’s not a person like us, he’s still a person, and he deserves a basic level of respect.”

She’s never had to use her boss voice on Tennessee. It feels strange.

“We can talk about this in as much detail as you’d like, but any more hostility toward him or insubordination toward me won’t be tolerated, and I’ll ask you to leave.”

She’s not lying, and he knows that -- he’s seen her poker face, and this isn’t a pair of fours.

He takes a deep breath. His hat comes off just long enough for him to push his hair back, just to have some motion to focus on while this settles in.

“Alright,” he finally sighs. “Talk away.”

She… Hadn’t planned this far.

“He…” She should tell him the truth, right? He deserves to know, as her friend if not the only remaining crew member of the _Covenant_. “He found a hidden menu on my datapad,” she starts. “Where he could adjust things. Simulate emotions, mess with sensory dials.”

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me?”

“ _Let_ ,” she snaps, “me _finish_.”

Tennessee doesn’t look happy about it, but he shuts his mouth again, passive aggressively tight.

“He very specifically worried about pushing it too far and being like David,” she continues. “He cares about me, and you, and the wellbeing of the colony. He would never put himself in a position where he could hurt us, he made that _very_ clear.”

“How can you even believe him?” Tennessee asks. “What if he already upped his ‘manipulative asshole’ dose and is lying to you? You know he got close to David, how do you know he didn’t rub off any crazy on him?”

“Because I do, okay?” she sighs. “Walters can’t lie, and _before you say he changed that_ ,” she pre-cuts off, as he’s opening his mouth, “he cared about us before he ever had access to my datapad. You know that.”

“Because he was programmed to.”

“Because he _has feelings_.”

“He _doesn’t_ , Danny,” Tennessee hisses. “I don’t know why you’re being so willfully ignorant about this. You know what happens when a synthetic gets feelings? They get recalled for being creepy, or dangerous, or they fuck off to a planet in the middle of nowhere and get even more creepy and dangerous.”

“That was David,” she reminds him. “There’s never been a Walter recall, _ever_ , and all _he_ did was experiment with good traits.”

“Oh, right,” Tennessee scoffs, “I forgot how well experimenting went with the last one.”

There’s footsteps on the porch, and they both freeze.

Walter. Firewood. Right.

“This conversation isn’t over,” Tennessee whispers.

“It is for now,” Daniels whispers back. “If you say a word to him I will --”

“-- What, exile me? Put me in space jail for disapproving of you being a robot-fucking _creep_?”

“You are so _fucking_ out of line,” she hisses, and then Walter knocks as he opens the door.

“I’m back.”

Daniels smiles at him.

“Tennessee actually forgot he has something to do tonight,” she says. She turns to Tennessee, but her smile loses its soft fondness in favor of a tense _absolutely do not try anything_ barely-masked grimace. “You better get going,” she says.

Tennessee stands from their dining room table without a word, only glaring at Daniels in the same faked smile she’s giving him.

He doesn’t say a word to Walter as he walks past, stepping around him with a wide berth when he tries to hold a hand out to shake as goodbye. He doesn’t even stop to pull his boots back on at the door, just yanks them up and walks out the door.

Walter frowns, but only looks to Daniels for explanation rather than stopping Tennessee. 

Neither moves until they hear Tennessee get back into his transport cart and hear dirt and rock crunch as he drives off.

Daniels lets out a breath neither of them realized she was holding.

“Shit,” she mumbles. Her hands scrub over her face like she’s trying to rub the scowl off, but all it does is reveal a more frustrated scowl.

“Is everything okay?” Walter asks. His body language has changed again, back to the more relaxed stance she’s become accustomed to, and she realizes how weird it had been seeing him so _robotic_ again.

“Yeah,” she says, first, then, “No, actually, _fuck_.”

Walter puts the firewood down by their door and takes his boots off.

Why can’t Tennessee see him like she does? As this, gently setting boots down like they’ll explode if he’s not careful, standing in socks and loose pants and a too-big shirt that she had to roll up at his wrists so he could use his hands. How could Tennessee look at this sweet, awkwardly smiling person, and think he’s a _danger_ to her?

He walks toward her with a hand reaching out to take hers, but she needs more than that. She bends a bit so she’s shorter than him and worms into his arms for comfort. He’s not quite human temperature, but that’s nice, somehow -- he’s got a unique _Walter_ temperature, unmistakable and familiar.

Walter wraps his arms around her easily, like he’s relieved to drop the emotional restraint, too. He probably is, she thinks.

“May I ask why you lied?” Walter asks.

“You can always ask me anything, Walter,” she recites into his chest, the same she does a minimum of three times a day, ever-patient. “When did I lie?”

“When you said Tennessee was busy tonight.”

She sighs. She knew he picked up on _something_.

“Yeah, he -- no, he wasn’t busy.”

“Why did he leave, then?”

“I asked him to.”

“Oh.” Walter relaxes further as he realizes Tennessee’s coldness toward him was more likely misdirected anger with Daniels. “May I ask why?”

“He found out.”

“...About us?”

“And in the interest of full disclosure,” she continues, _like an idiot,_ she doesn’t say, “I told him you were adjusting your balances.”

“And he didn’t take it well,” Walter finishes with a frown.

She sniffles against him and laughs.

“Of course not. I had to threaten him as the captain of the Covenant and leader of this mission.”

“Oh.” Walter runs his fingers through her hair. “Does it really bother you that much?” he asks. “That he isn’t alright with this situation?”

She shrugs.

“It’s not that it bothers me, it’s that it shouldn’t bother _him_ ,” she explains. “I understand him being worried, but I just -- I don’t want him to worry because there’s nothing to worry _about_.” She holds him a fraction tighter. “I think I’m mostly upset that he doesn’t trust my judgment after everything else we’ve been through.”

He nods against the top of her head.

“I understand that,” he agrees. “What do you think would help?”

She groans.

“I have _no_ idea,” she admits. “Talking to him about it, probably, but that went _so_ well tonight,” she mutters. She’ll try again another time, certainly, but tonight was a minor catastrophe and she just wants to curl up in a ball with Walter and sleep it off.

“Well,” Walter says slowly, “we could still have dinner. I’ll even try the wine, if you’d like.”

Daniels laughs against him.

“Yeah? I don’t think it’ll do much for you,” she jokes.

“If it’ll make you happy, it’ll make me happy,” he replies.

She keeps her face pressed to him -- she intends to hide the stupid smile on her face at him dropping something so heartfelt and _sweet_ , but she realizes too late that instead she’s given him a clear reading of how hot her face has gotten as she reddens.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” she answers too quickly. “I’m good. Fine.”

She un-tangles herself from him and kisses him softly.

She’d say she doesn’t know how she got so lucky, but she can only imagine it’s the universe making up for the thousand layers of Hell she had to go through to get here.

“Dinner,” she agrees. “Let’s have dinner.”


End file.
